Price Chopper Premium Beer 12 Oz Tab Top Can

Price Chopper Premium Beer Can

The Price Chopper Premium Beer 12 Oz Tab Top Can represents the 1970s era of regional supermarket private-label brewing. Fabricated with straight steel construction, the can features the classic Price Chopper grocery emblem—a woodsman's axe splitting a coin—positioned directly above the bold brand lettering. Below the label typography, the front display showcases a stylized, foaming mug of beer against a solid red backdrop. The mandatory brewery text along the edge reflects a three-city listing that credits the Forrest Brewing Company across New York, New York; Orange, New Jersey; and New Bedford, Massachusetts.

The Price Chopper brand was introduced to northeastern consumers when the Golub Corporation rebranded its Central Markets grocery chain in 1973 to highlight everyday discount pricing. To give shoppers an affordable house-brand alternative to national macrobrews, the supermarket chain contracted regional breweries to package beer under the company moniker. Positioned as an everyday value brew, it was distributed exclusively through regional supermarket aisles. As supermarket private-label branding evolved into generic packaging lines by the end of the decade, custom store-branded cans like this were discontinued.

Behind the Forrest Brewing Company trade name was Rheingold Breweries, one of the historic brewing powers of the American Northeast. Originating in Brooklyn in 1854 under German immigrant Samuel Liebmann, the firm expanded dramatically over the decades, buoyed by the enormous popularity of its flagship Rheingold label. As national competition accelerated in the post-war era, Rheingold acquired facilities in Orange, New Jersey, and New Bedford, Massachusetts. The company frequently operated under dba names like Forrest Brewing Company to pack house brands for major regional grocers, including Price Chopper, Pathmark, and Shop-Rite, before corporate changes and industrial decline led to the brewery's closure in the late 1970s.

For breweriana enthusiasts, this can serves as a classic snapshot of 1970s supermarket contract brewing and retail history. Because grocery store brands were sold within localized distribution networks and frequently changed packaging or supplier contracts, regional house-label pull tabs remain a distinctive focus for collectors of East Coast brewing memorabilia.